Less than a year after going on a strike but failing to obtain the resignation of MBC president Kim Jae Chul, the MBC labor union has decided to go on strike once again for the same purpose.

MBC labor union members participated in voting from January 25th –
27th , aimed to decide whether to go on strike to force the resignation
of MBC president Kim Jae Chul.

Of the 1,010 labor union members, 783 members casted their votes,
69.4% were for a strike while the remaining members were either against
it or abstained.

The labor union felt that despite airing their grievances over Kim Jae Chul being a puppet of the Lee Myung Bak
administration and interfering with the neutrality of the station in
their strike last April, nothing has changed. The labor union also
asserts that there has been a massive clampdown on freedom of the press,
with news reports mostly on pro-government policies. Thus, they have
decided to go on strike again to get Kim to step down and return MBC to a
neutrality state.

The strike also stemmed from a show of no confidence in MBC’s
newsroom chiefs with MBC journalists criticizing biased and substandard
news reporting and calling for their resignations. For example, when a
scandal broke on President Lee Myung Bak’s retirement residence last
November, the top story of MBC’s 9PM news program was the surging
popularity of K-pop stars.

The strike will begin at 6AM local time on January 30th. A representative from the MBC’s labor union stated, “We should always present an honest and accurate broadcasting to viewers, since we serve viewers with neutrality, as the nation’s public broadcaster.”

So how does this affect you? For a start, some variety shows, dramas and news programs will bear the full brunt of this shutdown.

Variety shows and dramas that are outsourced to 3rd party production
companies, will not be affected in any way by the strike and are likely
to be aired as scheduled.

An example would be currently airing MBC dramas, “The Moon That Embraces The Sun” and “Lights and Shadows“. This will come as a huge relief to viewers of these programs.

But for variety programs like “We Got Married“, “Infinity Challenge“, “I Am A Singer“, etc, which are largely produced by in-house MBC staff, they will be affected if there is a prolonged strike.

MBC has meanwhile reacted strongly with a statement, “This is an illegal strike and we will not hesitate to press charges based on company rules if it goes ahead.”

In a rare coincidence, journalists at the nation’s two major public
broadcasters are taking collective actions against their respective
management. The KBS and MBC reporters’ simultaneous no-confidence votes
in their newsroom chiefs ― or their company presidents ― were unheard of
even during dictatorial days. It shows how far the nation’s press
freedom has regressed under the Lee Myung-bak administration.

How have these broadcast journalists come to take such extreme steps? In
short, the unfair and lopsided reporting at the behest of top managers,
both President Lee’s former media aides, has reached unbearable levels.
Reporters at MBC, whose viewing ratings for news programs have
plummeted, will start a virtual strike today calling for their president
to step down.

For the viewers of the two public ― or state ― broadcasters, the
reporters’ actions are more than understandable. The two network
stations vied to cover up or downplay the government’s mistakes or
irregularities, while refusing to cover its political opponents ignoring
people’s right to know.

When the scandal broke on President Lee’s retirement residence in
November, for instance, the top story of MBC’s 9 p.m. news program was
the surging popularity of K-pop stars.

As if turning these public broadcasters into semi-official agencies was
not enough, the Lee administration has given rise to four more
pro-government, conservative channels to ``diversify” public opinion
markets showing an egregious irony, as such a move would no doubt lead
to the oligopoly of electronic media.

The so-called general service channels, which are technically cable
stations but practically terrestrial broadcasters both in function and
the benefits they enjoy, boast a ``1-percent” viewing rate, but demand
corporate advertisers to pay up to 70 percent of what the existing
networks charge. So dismal are their audiences that one of the new
channels failed to broadcast for nearly an hour, but it went virtually
unnoticed, as few tuned in.

According to a recent survey, about 90 percent of journalists in active
duty gave a negative rating to the Lee administration’s media policy.
This is small surprise, considering how Seoul is running counter to
global trends of reregulation, diversification and separation of print
and electronic media. It’s natural global agencies have kept downgrading
the nation’s press freedom.

The government must put public interest back ahead of market principle
and political motivation in this year of important elections. Otherwise,
the media-democratizing fire reignited at public broadcasters will
spread and lash back at the governing camp.